Gandhi exhibition showing in Wellington City Library - 28 September to 12 October

The Gandhi Commemorative Exhibition will be showing on the first floor of the Wellington Central Library for two weeks from 28 September to 12 October 2009.

The series of black and white photographs exhibited here portray Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi otherwise known as Mahatma Gandhi during the culminating period of India’s freedom movement in the 1940s. Gandhi was perhaps the key figure in winning India’s independence from Britain after nearly two centuries of British rule over much of the sub-continent. It was his rigorous cultivation of non-violent protest that gave the Indian independence movement its singular character. 

The photographs were taken by D.R.D. Wadia a well-known photographer based in Bombay. D.R.D. Wadia was widely travelled and had photographed writers, artists and musicians in  Europe and USA. He and his wife Piroja Wadia were – like many others at that time – also involved in the independence movement and knew Gandhi personally. At the time the photographs were taken the Wadias lived a few minutes away from where Gandhi conducted various meetings. The photographs thus represent a personal perspective on the public life of one of the world’s most inspiring political leaders.

The photographs were brought to New Zealand by the photographer’s daughter Zarine Malik while she was visiting her son who is a lecturer at the University of Canterbury’s Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies. Prior to this the negatives were in possession of the Gandhi Institute in Berlin. The photographs have been shown in photographic displays and publications in India, New Zealand and Germany.

The intention of the exhibition is to raise awareness of the ideals and practice of peaceful non-violence as a way of resolving personal and political conflict.